Recover Data from Hard Drive Crash

Any suggestions on how I can recover the data off this drive? This is something that I will be looking at in a couple of days, however I wanted to get the input from past experiences in recovering data in this type of situation. I have read in past forums to place the hard drive in a paper bag and into the freezer for a little while then right to the adapter and try to recover the data. Any other ideas are always welcomed and appreciated.

The state of the hard drive is that it is as follows.
Seagate 2T external hard drive that was clicking for awhile. I can sometimes play the movies on a media player on my television, but unable to copy onto a new hard drive. Clicking has stopped, but still a whining sound. I'm able to see the movie files and when I try to copy it only transfers half the file and then errors stating unable to read.

I also have a second hard drive that is a WD 2T Elements, that was dropped and the connector inside is broken. Any thoughts?

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Bad news is that I had a few problems like that, never finished good. Good news is, that you can try to connect Seagate hard disk directly to motherboard with pata or sata cable. Probably BIOS will find it o.k. Then try to copy 1 (one) small file from the disk. (if you try to copy all or a lot of files, the disk will probably freeze).

The whining sound is bearing (ball-bearing).
The clicking sound is sound of head moving to park position due to repositioning again, that's why copy operation didn't finish.

The last thing to do, (if the data is really important) is to disassemble the hdd and put magnet disk to a "machine" that will copy data. Expensive or not, ...

I would suggest getting an external enclosure to put the hard drive in to recover the data. Stellar makes a robust economical utility that will recover data from failed and/or failing drives. StarTech makes an economical dual external drive bay that will connect via USB to your computer much like the Seagate product. Only theirs enable you to connect either a 3.5 or 2.5 SATA drive in a "drop-in" configuration. Excellent for the type of task you have before you. It would be a good idea to image the problematic hard drive and restore that image on a healthy new drive before you attempt a recovery. The basic version of Stellar Phoeniz for recovery costs only $49 US via download. The PRO version of Phoenix comes with all the tools necessary via download for only $99 US. Well worth the money if you value your data. But then, if you value your data you regularly back it up, right?

Yes I agree, I like the idea of attempting to image? the drive first. I will give that a try. I am waiting on this individual to contact me to assist with his problem. Thanks again for the smart advice.

if you are brave, dexterous, mechanically inclined, have a clean area, and can find an exact model match for that drive you can swap out the heads and platters. Do this only after you have given up on all other methods.
After the hurdle of finding an exact drive match, the next hard part is to dissemble the old drive without touching the surface of any of the platters or bending the head arms. Soft lint free cotton gloves are a good choice here as is an anti static strap. http://www.wikihow.com/Swap-Hard-Disk-Drive-Platters
-http://www.harddrive-repair.com/head-swap-platter-swap.html

Good and simple solution buy a external enclosure, as gently Lee pointed, and you can do a couple of things more:
a).- Run the antivirus over your disk.
b).-Search for errors in the disk.
c).- An De fragment it.
d).- Back up your valuable info.

Then you may tray to install it again in your pc, a lot of chances are that it may work again.
Try this it has worked fine to me.
Martin Caldera

@MartinCald - read topic, please.
???
"Seagate 2T external hard drive that was clicking for awhile... Clicking has stopped, but still a whining sound... I'm able to see the movie files and when I try to copy it only transfers half the file and then errors stating unable to read..."
???
- Moving hard drive to new external enclosure will help only if the old enclosure electronic board is bad, (in this case the problem is probably hard drive, a lot of older Seagate models have the same failure)
- Running AntiVirus will do nothing helpfull, (at this time).
!!! Defragment will do more harm to the disk because is read/write operation on damaged disk !!!
- CHKDSK could help, (but I am sceptic, because it's not file system integrity or logical file system error.)

@kjpcsrepair - You can try CHKDSK from command prompt, (Boot from liveCD):

I would not do anything with the drive other than attempt to get the data off of it immediately. I suggest the external enclosure just to be able to rule out any malfunction of the previous enclosure which is not certain yet. Running chkdsk could further corrupt the remaining data if bad sectors are found and it attempts to repair. Protect the data first, then diagnose the disk.

I agree, protect the data first.
Rather than an enclosure, you should add one, or both, of these to your collection -

- Dock that you can shove a Sata drive into vertically
(These have a USB connector, and some have eSata as well)

- A wee thingy that has a plastic unit half the size of your hand.
It has 3 sockets on it (3.5" IDE, 2.5" IDE, and a Sata socket)
It has a power supply (Mains converted to low voltage DC).
It has a USB connector to plug into a PC
This is the cheapest, simplest, and most flexible solution on planet earth.

I have a drive enclosure and I would certainly follow the advice that Lee provided, I think that makes the most sense for a successful retrieval of the data. However the individual that had approached me on this topic, has not responded back.

Seriously stress the word "clean" here, as hard disk normal operation
has the heads "flying" very close to the platters; on the order of 3nm
(nanometers, billionths of a meter). For comparison, dust is
comparatively boulder-sized at around 500nm. With a 7200 rpm drive and
the heads about halfway out, the platter surface is moving some 50-60mph
(that seems slow - did I hose the math?) under the heads. Imagine
hitting an 80-foot boulder at that speed in your car. Now think of what
it's going to do to your heads and platter surface.